1. (n.) That branch of philological science which treats of the history of words, tracing out their origin, primitive significance, and changes of form and meaning.

2. (n.) That part of grammar which relates to the changes in the form of the words in a language; inflection.

bowwow theory comparative linguistics derivation descriptive linguistics dialectology dingdong theory eponymy folk etymology glossematics glossology glottochronology glottology grammar graphemics historical linguistics language study lexicology lexicostatistics linguistic geography linguistic science linguistics mathematical linguistics morphology morphophonemics origin paleography philology phonetics phonology psycholinguistics semantic history semantics sociolinguistics structuralism syntactics transformational linguistics word history